The use of computers to play music has created a great interest in techniques of providing a visual accompaniment to the music, known as “eye candy.” This interest has been accelerated by the internet and the availability of MP3 audio files which can be downloaded and played on MP3 players, such as WinAmp, Sonique, etc., which are also downloaded. Many of these players are configured to run plug-in visualization programs. Some of these players such as LAVA (Live Audio-Visual Animation), created by the assignee of the present invention, respond in real time to events based on characteristics of the music being played, e.g., transients (such as beats) or sounds in a selected frequency band (such as a high note played by flute).
These real time video musical accompaniments are generally presented in a hard-wired format with limited control by the viewer. The scenes are usually designed by professional programmers and downloaded in compiled format to the users. Typically an interface is provided with minimal controls such as switching between fixed scenes, varying preset camera angles, and toggling between preset object or scene attributes.
Typically, the art in the scene consists of shapes and mapped textures which are stored in the memory of the computer. A visualization product disclosed in a co-pending application entitled DATA STRUCTURE AND CONTROL INTERFACE FOR AN EVENT DRIVEN VISUAL PRESENTATION, filed Nov. 12, 1999 (application Ser. No. 60/165,059, which is hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes) describes a product allowing editing by a viewer to facilitate substitution of existing scene objects and textures with new objects and textures which may be downloaded from the internet.
Often the original scene is entertaining and interesting but the user has ideas on how to customize or vary the scene. Accordingly, developers of event driven music visualizations are continuing to refine their products.